Frostburg mining journal. [volume] (Frostburg, Md.) 1871-1913, 1887-11-12
e. b. wAsHBURNE DEAD.
The Ex-Congressman and Minister Ends
His Long Illness.

u d
The Ex-Congressman and Minister Ends
His Long Illness.
Hon. Elihu B. Washburne, who had for
more than two months been lying seriously
i'll at his home in Chicago has died.
No American family ever had so many of
its members in contemporary public service
as that to which the distinguished statesman
Elihu B. Washburne, whose death is just re-
corded, belonged. Their immediate ancestors
were sturdy pioneers in the Maine forests be-
fore the beginning of the present century,
and of the four brothers, Israel, who died in
Philadelphia q few years ago while in the
city for medical treatment, was the war gov
ernor of his native State from 1860 to 1862,
after ten years of service in Congress Cad
walader @. Washburne emigrated to Wiscon-
sin and represented that State in Congress
for five consecutive terms, and the youngest
of the four, William D.. settled in Minnesota,
where he became very rich as the owner of
the great flour mills at Minneapolis, and also
sat in the House of Representatives for ten
years. During the Thirty-fourth, Thirty
fifth and Thirty-sixth Congresses Israel,
Elihu and Cadwalader were all members OF
the House and were very prominent in the
history ofthe war and reconstruction period.
Each ofthe four was a strong positive sagac-
ious and far-sighted Republican, but the ge-
MUS of the family eliminated in Elihu B., al
though in scholarship he was surpassed by
his eldest brother, Israel.
Ehhu b. Washburne was born at East Liver
more, Me-, September %, 1876 and served an
apprenticeship in the printing Office of the
kennebec Journal, the newspaper of which
Mr.. James G. Blaine was subsequently the
editor. Then he studied law at Harvard and
after his admission to the bar removed to
H~I4 Al i
to the Thirty-third Congress, but in the disso-
luton of the party upon the slavery issue,
Mr.. Washburne found congenial associations
in the newly-formed Republican organiza-
ton, which reelected him for each consec-
utive term until 1869. He was scarcely
warm in his seat before he made his strong
abilities felt in the debates and legislation of
the House. In the controversies over the
various compromises by which it was endeav-
ored to limit the extension of slavery into
the new territories of the West he was an
aggressive and courageous free soil cham
pion. For many years he was chairman of
the committee on commerce, and left his
impress upon much of the commercial leg
islation of the period. In the Thirty-eighth
Congress, sitting from December, 1868, to
March, 1865, he was the senior member in
continuous service, and usage awarded him
the title of Father of the House." AS
member of the committee ON reconstruction
that followed the war, he was an efficient
assistant of Thaddeus Stevens, the chairman,
in the labor of rehabilitating the Southern
States.
Mr.. Washburne's residence IN Galena had,
of course, brought him into contract with
General U. S. Grant, when the latter was en-
gagged in civil pursuits in that town, and
upon the breaking out of the war he was one
OF those who recommended to Governor
Yates the appointment of the ex-officer of
the regular army to command of an Hi
nois regiment. He possessed an implicit
faith in the military qualifications of Grant,
and was the author of the bill reviving the
office of lieutenant general, which had lapsed
with the death of General Scott, in order
that it might be conferred upon Grant. The
latter, upon his election to the presidency,
evinced his appreciation of Mr.. Washburne
by calling him from Congress into his cab
met as Secretary of State. Ill-health, it was
said, compelled his resignation of the office
within week, and he was at once appointed
minister to France.
1t was in this position that Mr.. Washburne
memorably closed his public career by a series
of acts which made his name h0norablv
known throughout the civilized world. When
Germany and France went to war, in the
summer OF 1870, every representative of a
foreign government except the American
minister left Paris. In that city remained
some 5000 Germans, the objects of the sus-
picion, hatred and ill-will of the French.
and he discharged that delicate and perilous
duty with so much efficiency and tact that
while he in no wise offended the French
people and their government he protected
his German charges most thoroughly from
all injury except the inevitable caamities of
war. For these invaluable services the EN-
peror William desired to confer upon him the
Order of the Red Eagle, and when he was
obliged to refuse this testimonial under the
laws of the United States, he was presented by
the Emperor with portrait of himself and
one of Prince Bismarck. Mr. Washburne
stuck to his post in Paris during the siege
by the Germans and also during that still
more trying period when the Communists
held the city, and it was beleaguered and
bombarded by the army ofthe Versailles gov
eminent. In this second dreadful epoch he so
befriended many suffering Parisians and for
eigners in the days of starvation and terror
that the government of Theirs rendered him
formal thanks, while the American Con-
gress expressed its appreciation of his course
in appropriate resolutions. Returning home
in 1877, Mr.. Washburne retired from his po-
litical career, and thenceforward until his
death lived quietly in Chicago. He was NOM
lnally the president of the recent American
Exhibition in London, but took no active
mart in itS off